Mr. Donall O'Keeffe:

The figure of 84 that was mentioned is correct. However, we do not believe there are 84 bona fide theatres in this country, and we certainly do not believe that the licensing regime needs to be amended to accommodate them. The sale of alcohol is supposed to be ancillary to the main event under the legislation, and that is correct. The main focus of a cultural premises and a cultural event should be around the event they are putting on. Our concern, based on what happened with theatre licences, is that people will use it as a backdoor into the pub trade, late bar trade and nightclub industry and that the sale of alcohol will become the commercial driver of that business. We fully support and think it is brilliant that a level playing field is being brought to bear and the requirements to sell alcohol on the premises are the same. We do not agree - and many people around the table have suggested this - that we should now go from putting everything into a pub licence, hotel licence and restaurant licence back to loads more different types of licences, such as cultural events licences, craft brewers licences and separate nightclub licences, and bring a whole raft of complexity back into it.

Our submission is based on how there should be three forms of licences: a pub licence for people who are in on-trade alcohol sales, and that is their business; a restaurant licence for people who are in the food business, with food leading their business; and a hotel licence for people who are in the accommodation business. If people want to sell drink, they should get a public licence like everybody else. They should meet the same fire officers’, building, insurance and commercial rates requirements, pay the same labour rates as we pay and then compete with us. We are not afraid of the competition; 6,800 pubs compete with each other every day. However, we do not agree that there should be millions of new types of licences, with different angles for different cultural institutions. On-trade alcohol sales should be subject to the same regime, full stop.